Taking a Chance with Your Career Post-Covid

Taking a chance with your career

post-Covid By Mandy Garner

Ann-Marie Murphy works as a secondary school teacher in the Midlands, but after her maternity leave she switched to part-time hours to manage childcare and her job. If the pandemic hadn’t happened, Ann-Marie would have returned to work full time when her daughter started school. As it was, a year later, ‘when she started in Year 1, I was still only working two days a week in school because the pandemic meant it wasn’t guaranteed she’d actually be there and there was also the possibility of needing to home school too,’ explains Ann-Marie.

Like many other working mothers, AnnMarie’s mental health was affected by the pandemic, with her anxiety levels increasing. As a parent, she worried about having to send her daughter to school during Covid, and, as a teacher, she worried about her own exposure to the virus. In a Working Mums (www.workingmums.co.uk) survey of one thousand three hundred working mums, thirty percent of those surveyed mentioned that worries about children’s wellbeing was one factor which contributed to the worsening of their mental health during the pandemic.

‘I work in a school of nearly two thousand children. Very few of them were willing to wear masks and social distancing didn’t exist’ reports Ann-Marie. ‘So all of that really added to a general sense of anxiety.’

Seventy percent of the survey respondents said that the anxiety about lockdowns and Covid generally affected their mental wellbeing and over sixty percent said that homeschooling and childcare also had an impact.

In the same Working Mums survey, only nineteen percent of those surveyed reported that their employer had supported them with their mental health and Ann-Marie did not feel that she was given the support she needed.

The pandemic made Ann-Marie reconsider her career.

‘I think teaching is an important job’ says Ann-Marie. ‘But, during the pandemic, schools and teachers have not been treated well. It has made me feel like we’re not really valued and schools have been seen as a way to keep children occupied so that parents can work.’

Sadly, the Working Mums survey shows that Ann-Marie is not alone. Twenty four percent of working mothers state that they are less likely to seek a promotion than they were before Covid.

But it’s not all bad news!

Re-evaluating your career can be really beneficial.

Before Covid, Ann-Marie was running different side businesses, the most successful one being an online gifts and cards shop. During the pandemic she decided to start an additional business with her partner, as they were both working from home. The focus of the new business is on digital safeguarding for schools, which includes looking at how images and personal data are used online and managing consent.

The pandemic has opened a new door for Ann-Marie, which might have stayed closed under different circumstances. Being exposed to circumstances where she didn’t feel safe at work and in which she felt schools and teachers were being undermined, she wanted to look at creating and building on an opportunity which gives her more freedom over how she works.

“I want to do something worthwhile which is helping, but where I’ve got more control over my own safety and my timetable. The flexibility seems more important now than ever’ says Ann-Marie.

Mandy Garner works for www.workingmums.co.uk, a website which offers employers and job seekers the chance to find home-based, part time and flexible full time jobs.